Ensuring a ‘Miracle’ happens: Boy saves puppy by clearing its lungs of mucous

JIM RYDBOM/jrydbom@greeleytrib.comJosh Hendrickson, 13, holds up a week-old Labrador retriever female puppy he named Miracle while surrounded by 10 other puppies and their mother, Daisy at their Greeley home. Josh saved the life of Miracle during birth, after sucking the mucous out of its lungs with his mouth when the puppy could not breathe.

OK, before we get into this story, we need to get the main question out of the way. The question everybody asks when they hear what Josh did.

Question: “Josh, what did it taste like?”

Josh: “Boogers.”

Thanks, Josh. Glad we cleared that up.

Josh Hendrickson is 13 years old and has already become a hero in his home. He saved a puppy by doing something many of us would refuse.

It happened last week, when the family’s labrador retriever, Daisy, was having her first litter of pups. The family was surprised there were 13 of them. Two were still-born, not sufficiently formed to survive.

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But the others came out all right, except for one little guy who wasn’t breathing.

Josh’s stepfather, J.C. Lowe, had to leave for work after helping Daisy for several hours. Josh, his sister, Tynnette, and their aunt were at the house.

When the puppy came out without breathing, Josh quickly called their veterinarian at Belair Animal Hospital.

“He said the puppy’s airway was probably clogged with mucous,” Josh said. “We had to get the mucous out if the puppy was going to breathe.”

So seventh-grader Josh used two fingers to pump the puppy’s chest a few times, then put his mouth around the puppy’s mouth and sucked.

It worked. The mucous that was clogging the puppy’s breathing broke free, and Josh sucked it into his own mouth.

“I spit it out right away, though,” Josh said.

The puppy was breathing, but it wasn’t over, yet.

The umbilical cord on the puppy was bleeding. And so Josh, who now thinks maybe he might be a veterinarian some day, tied the umbilical cord with thread. The cord isn’t much bigger than the thread itself, but Josh tied it.

And now the puppy and his brothers and sisters — all unusual silver-colored Labs — are OK.

Stepfather Lowe is proud.

“A lot of people wouldn’t have called the vet, and even then wouldn’t have sucked out the mucous. He did it,” Lowe said.

The puppy doesn’t have a name yet because in eight weeks, all will be offered for sale. But Josh suggested a name for the puppy he saved: “Miracle.”

Which is much better than “Booger.”

Staff writer Mike Peters’ column about Weld County people appears Mondays in the Tribune. His humor column, the Gnarly Trombone, appears Saturdays.